In the wake of reports of violation of ethical guidelines and exploitation during the “clinical trials” of HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine, meant to prevent cervical cancer among women, the Centre on Wednesday advised the State governments to suspend the vaccine programme until the issue is settled. Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research V.M. Katoch told The Hindu that he had asked the Health Ministry, the State governments and...

Sixteen persons were sentenced to death by a Bihar court on Wednesday for their involvement in the Jehanabad carnage of 1997, in which 58 unarmed Dalits were massacred by the Ranbir Sena, a private militia of landlords. Ten others were sentenced to life term and were also slapped with a fine of Rs.31,000 each by Additional District Judge Vijay Prakash Mishra. Fifty-eight Dalits, including 27 women and 16 children, were gunned down...

Last summer, about 150 families of Kachan village in Jharkhand’s Palamu district decided to pool funds to repair their only community tube well. A drought, the worst in many years, had dried up two ponds; there were no wells around; and the tube well had been dysfunctional for a year. It took a lot of hardship and one whole month for them to put together what the mechanic had asked...

How serious is the United Progressive Alliance government about enacting food security legislation that gives every citizen in the country the right to adequate food? On the face of it, the government appears to be extremely serious. After all, ensuring the right to food was a major election promise of the Congress party that leads the UPA; it has been frequently mentioned in various official pronouncements of this government; and...

The government’s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and “not in the spirit of the election promises” in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday. The three-page note—a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times—came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers...